Deregulating polluting gases, Trump’s latest crusade against climate change: what does this measure mean?

The President of the United States, Donald Trump, has taken another step forward in his particular crusade against climate change. The president on Thursday revoked the so-called danger ruling, approved by the Barack Obama administration in 2009, which established that six greenhouse gases emitted by combustion engines are harmful to health.

The ruling, approved during the first term of Democratic President Obama, established that six greenhouse gases present in the Earth’s atmosphere and emitted by car combustion engines, such as carbon dioxide or nitrous oxide, pose a risk to health. At a press conference at the White House, in which he was accompanied by the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Lee Zeldin, Trump defended the measure as “the largest deregulation action in American history” and assured that it will save “trillions of dollars for American consumers and reduce the average cost of a new vehicle by almost 3,000 dollars”. At the same time, the EPA has repealed emission standards for light, medium and heavy vehicles, after announcing last March that it would review some thirty regulations regarding polluting gases, which provoked the condemnation of different environmental organizations.

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